September Sailing

Here it is 9-9-09... last Beer Can of the season... last Wednesday we had a bit of a tough start - got sandwiched between a couple boats and, of course, light wind made for a tough race... tonight should be better.

This past weekend was Labor Day - that meant a cruise to Holland, MI for Dark Island with Matt, Judi and Tom. Matt's sweet singing attracted a little Warbler.

I sailed in the tri-state with Maskwa - we did great the first night - 1st place!! We also had a couple flying visitors on our trip back from Michigan City... we didn't have a serenade for them, but we did have a lot of dead bugs for them to clean up!

(I had two great pics, but can't upload them... I'll try again later).

Getting Giddy...

After 6 hours crossing the lake, we started to get a little giddy... Carly, drive into the sun... "YAAAAYYY! Carly, drive away from the sun "boooooooooo."

Cruising!

We took a couple cruises this summer - this one was to New Buffalo. We were supposed to leave on Thursday night, but the weather was soooooo bad - rainy, high winds, big waves - we postponed the trip until Friday night. It turned out to be a really great postponement as we were able to cross in 20-30knots, rolling waves, clear skies (for the most part) and chilly, but tolerable temps. Carly, Keri, me, Tom & Judy headed off for the Michigan coast at about 10PM. We decided Carly, Keri and I were going to have to color code ourselves by t-shirts or something so Tom could tell us apart (we are all about the same height, brunettes, kind of look alike) HA! Just kidding. The trip was awesome - great sailing, lots and lots of laughs, saw a new town (about 2 blocks long) good food, etc! We should do this every weekend!






Pre-cruising preparation!


The pants that ate Keri! Where did those things COME FROM?! And WHO can fit in them? The Jolly Green Giant?

All Tom had to do was sit back a relax - the "girls" did all the driving!

And, finally, August

August - notice there is a "gust" in August! Finally got some wind. Took some firsts and seconds - more rum, yay! Small section - yay! We had a special visit from Katie! I think that was her first beer can! Also, Diane was able to sail a couple times since her calculus class ended!





Hi Katie and Diane!

July!

July 4th! Brrrrrrr! I remember the 4th of July being super cold and rainy... It did clear up for a sail on the night of the 4th... and the fireworks started at about 8:40pm - it was still light! come on Chicago... world class city that spends millions to light fireworks in the daylight... crazy. It was still a good sail. Throughout July, we are getting more and more comfortable and experimenting with the boat. I think we got our first first and some seconds on Wednesday night races. Yay! Rum for the islanders!

Also significant this month was Judi's "last" Mac race on Maskwa! Her 10th and "final" unless we can talk Tom into doing a cruising Mac... (Insert Tom rolling his eyes here.) It turned out to be a slow Mac.. I don't know what the problem was - Nicole and I had plenty of wind on our drive up to the island... look at all that blowing wind!!



Here is Maskwa's finish and the unveiling of Manny's "Goat" cap...

June Flew By

Well - here it is...almost the end of the season and I have been severely lacking in updates...

June was pretty quiet. A couple weeks with no wind, at all. We're really learning a lot about Dark Island - turns out, it's true, DI is not a light wind boat... we had to gracefully bow out of a race one night... it was just too much. Instead, we headed in and had some drinks and food...which ended up being a lot more fun than 0.0 knots to the finish. There was a week with bad weather where Judy sailed on Tempest and I sailed on Planxty... it was fun - spinnaker sailing for a change!

We did the lady skipper in early July - which was also a sloooooooow race. Look at the pics - see how smooth the water looks?! We had a postponement waiting for the wind that never came... well then a little came and we were able to finish. So that's June/Early July in a nutshell. "No, this is me in a nutshell... let me out, let me out!" Austin Powers for those who didn't get that reference...